I was watching Regis and Kelly (guilty pleasure) Tuesday morning when they showed this fabulous recipe for chocolate hearts. It looked easy enough, and chocolate is almost always a winner, so I thought I’d share it with you in time for Valentine’s Day.
First of all, you need to melt some tempered chocolate:
INGREDIENTS:
2 pounds of chopped chocolate or chocolate discs
DIRECTIONS:
Place a saucepan half-filled with water over medium heat and cover with a heatproof mixing bowl large enough to snugly rest on the rim of the saucepan.
Use 2 pounds of chopped chocolate or chocolate discs. Place about 2/3rd’s of the chopped chocolate or chocolate discs into the bowl.
Use a rubber spatula to stir occasionally until the chocolate reaches about 100°F. This can be determined by either inserting a candy thermometer or noting that about 2/3rds of the chocolate has melted.
Carefully remove the bowl from the pan. Stir in the remaining chocolate.
As the chocolate cools you will see it start to crystallize (harden) around the outside edge of the bowl. Use the rubber spatula to stir this crystallized chocolate into the melted chocolate.
Place the bowl of melted chocolate back over simmering water to ensure chocolate is completely melted and reheated; should reach a temperature of 88°F-90°F.
If the chocolate is tempered, a knife tip dipped into tempered chocolate will set with a nice shine after 60 seconds in the refrigerator.
Next, fill a plastic baggy with the chocolate, and in one corner cut a small hole (now the chocolate will be fairly liquid-y at this time, so the smaller the hole the better – if you watched the show you noticed Kelly’s was quite large and the chocolate came out way too fast). On wax or freezer paper, squeeze out two identical circles close together but not touching. Take the back of a spoon and slide the bottoms of the two circles together, creating a heart shape. Put whatever toppings you would like on top of the hearts while they are still wet (almonds, walnuts, red hots, coconut shavings, etc.). Place your tray in the fridge and let them cool. When they have hardened you can take them off and enjoy!
Thank you Regis and Kelly and chef Jacques Torres for this great recipe!
~Maria
Maddie
1 year ago
i was wondering what tempering the chocolate does
admin Reply:
February 13th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
It’s basically a fancy way of saying melt lol! It’s the best process to get smooth, melted chocolate that will harden nicely, without it burning or clumping up.